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BP’s “company man” still in hiding

Where are you, Donald Vidrine?

Who is Donald Vidrine? He is the BP “company man” on the Deepwater Horizon rig who allegedly pushed to race through procedures on the day the rig exploded and killed 11 workers. “Well, this is how it’s gonna be,” Vidrine allegedly said when confronted by other concerned workers. On three occasions, he has refused to testify about what took place on the platform (“ostensibly because of illness,” says AOL News). While CEO Tony Heyward took the brunt of criticism and ridicule for his gaffes as the Macondo Well gushed 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, Vidrine and other BP officials more directly connected to the rig have largely escaped media scrutiny.

Not everyone has overlooked Vidrine and company. The website www.donaldvidrine.com has been set up, and it’s not a flattering site.

This week, two BP employees who were on the well when it exploded plead the fifth and refused to testify: drilling engineer Brian More, who helped design the well, and worker Robert Kaluza.

The operator of the rig’s undersea robots told the BBC that he informed unnamed “company men” about a leak in the blowout preventer (BOP) weeks before the explosion. Yet, instead of shutting down the operation, production didn’t miss a beat as a backup system was used.

In a Coast Guard and MMS hearing this summer, Douglas H. Brown, chief mechanic on the platform, spoke of a “skirmish” in an 11:00 a.m. meeting between representatives of Transocean and BP on April 20. The argument centered over the decision by BP’s representative to remove drilling mud and replace it with seawater before temporarily sealing up the well.

Brown said Transocean’s crew leaders disagreed with the procedure but were reportedly overruled by Vidrine.

Because BP is circling the wagons and protecting Mr. Vidrine and other company men from saying anything that might incriminate themselves or the company, it remains to be seen if he was acting on his sole authority to replace the drilling mud with seawater or if he was carrying out corporate orders to speed up the process at the expense of a safe operation.

Less than 12 hours after the argument, the rig exploded.

Time will tell exactly who will take legal bullets from the disaster. In situations like this it is customary for a corporation to isolate the actual decision-makers from the media to make sure they get their stories straight before having to face prosecutors. Settlements may be offered and taken behind the scenes. Sometimes, however, the feds can exert enough force on those decision-makers to roll over on higher ups in exchange for full or limited immunity if it is proven that they were carrying out company policy to cut corners.

A few years ago, the Coast Guard went after a shipping line because five of its vessels had bypassed the oily water separators and discharged “slops” at sea. Though numerous engineers on all the vessels were aware they were breaking pollution laws, in the end only one person—a chief engineer—was ever sentenced to prison time.

Learn your rights as a seaman by ordering free copy of The Insider's Guide to Winning Your Maritime Injury Case written by Jones Act and maritime accident injury lawyer Brian Beckcom.

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